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Smart plants are for real

We tend to view plants as having
'characteristics' rather than 'behaviours'. The latter suggests
senses, reactions and communication at a level impossible without a
nervous system.

Biotech scientists seem to view plants
as lego-like structures into which they can slot characteristics of
their choice, even animal ones. Belief in their ability to
custom-build plant life is such that testing the whole-picture
reality of what they've created has never been big on the GM agenda.

Plants, however, aren't simple
bystanders in their environment, or passive sugar factories running
on solar power. They're far smarter than we think.

Plant scientists have discovered at
least 20 different senses with which plants monitor and respond to
their environmental conditions. These include a whole spectrum of
sounds and motions, humidity, load, gravity, ice and electro-magnetic
fields. Moreover, plants can learn the difference between an
apparent physical threat which they can ignore, and a real one to
which they must react.

They're certainly capable of detecting
what's going on around them even at a distance, protecting
themselves, orchestrating their nutrients and water supplies, and
communicating with microbes, animals and each other.

For example ...

Roots don't
flounder around randomly. They grow purposefully towards nutrients
and water, and start growing around obstacles before reaching them.

Making themselves herbivore-unfriendly
is a common plant-trick. There are hundreds
of species which coat themselves in unpalatable grit. Sometimes
they don't bother, however, unless they know
the risk is there. Thorns and stings and spikey leaves grow thickest
in vulnerable parts of
the plant. Science tells us that plants which hear munching
caterpillars make themselves taste bad, and plants which are touched
generate substances to give unwary herbivores a stomach-ache.

Plants
don't only protect themselves.
The huge network of soil fungi which connects their roots, or
chemical signals in the air, form a telegraph system for warning
other plants of imminent attack. These signals can also muster the
helping hand of predators to beat off the enemy.soil

Gathering soil
microbial life around their roots to nourish and protect themselves
may be ubiquitous is plant-life. Woodland soil fungi helpfully
channel nutrients from seasonal high-nutrient trees to seasonal
low-nutrient trees.

It may be
comforting to those of you who talk to your plants or play them music
to know that science agrees they can hear and respond to sound.

Music has been
shown to wake up seeds, and farmers wise in the ancient knowledge of
India chant to their crops to promote healthy growth. Classical
music and Indian raga accelerate plant growth rate and increase their
final size. Young corn roots grow towards a continuous sound,
especially at certain frequencies.

Communication with
humans in other ways has been experimentally demonstrated. Healing
energy (which has it origins in India) channelled through the hands
inspires seeds to start growing. Bare-foot dancing ancient
Indian-style made several plant species flower earlier.

Researchers have
even discovered that plants recognise their close kin, reacting
differently to plants with the same parents than to non-siblings.

How do plants
achieve all this?

So far, the
evidence is pointing to the millions of root tips in every root
system as the centre of plant intelligence. The jury's out on how
they sense and react, but plants do have a system for sending
electrical signals and do produce substances akin to animal
neurotransmitters. Theories of plant 'perception' include proteins
in the cell membranes which are altered by external factors.

OUR COMMENT

Does all this
suggest that the Bt crops which soil fungi don't like (see FUNGI DON'T LIKE Bt CROPS - September 2016) actually have
'brain-damaged' roots? And what might all that unnatural GM protein
do to a delicate protein-based plant sensory-system?

Sadly, the vast
majority of today's plant scientists are molecular biologists whose
sole expertise is DNA and isolated biochemical pathways. The best
they seem to be able to come up with to use this exciting infant
knowledge of plant senses is to genetically transform crops to make
them respond to sounds that would be useful to agriculture.

Perhaps if we
studied them more closely and bred plants for greater intelligence,
we'd achieve healthier crops and sustainable yields.

If you
want to know more about plant intelligence, check out Peter
Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees,
or Stefano Mancuso and Alessandra Viola's Brilliant Green:
the surprising history and science of plant intelligence.

Welcome to GM-free Scotland

About us

Formerly known as the Scottish Consumers Association for Natural Food, Pro-natural Food Scotland was formed in 1996 by a group of concerned people in Glasgow, Scotland. We are funded entirely by donation and run by volunteers. We network with, and support, all like-minded groups and individuals. Our objective is to empower by raising awareness.